Category: Inductees

MISS PEGGY LEE Musician Miss Peggy Lee was born Norma Deloris Engstrom, on May 26, 1920, in Jamestown, North Dakota. Norma was seventh of eight children born to Marvin and Selma Engstrom who were both of Scandinavian descent. Selma passed away when Norma was only four-years-old and soon afterward the family’s house was lost to fire. Shortly after the fire, Marvin remarried to the family’s housekeeper, Min Schaumber. In addition to keeping house, cooking, cleaning, milking cows, butchering farm animals and maintaining the wash, from 1934 to 1937 Norma assisted her father in his duties as station agent at the Midland Continental Depot in Wimbledon, North Dakota. As a teenager,

LYNN ANDERSON Lynn Rene Anderson was born to Casey and Lizz Anderson on September 26 in 1947. Lynn was born in Grand Forks, North Dakota and was raised in Fair Oaks, California by her parents who were both songwriters. It’s said that Lynn’s musical talent was recognizable by age six and that her mother’s work as a country music songwriter had a huge impact on Lynn’s love of music. In an interview, Lynn suggested it was a normal occurrence for her to find her parents having invited home for a late night jam session, musical greats including Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Freddie Hart and Wynn Stewart. Lynn’s big break came

BOBBY VEE Robert Thomas Velline was Born in Fargo, North Dakota to Sydney Ronald Velline and Saima Cecilia Tapanila on April 30, 1943. Velline’s career began amid tragedy. On “The Day the Music Died” (February 3, 1959), the three headline acts in the line-up of the traveling ‘Winter Dance Party’—Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper—were killed, along with 21-year-old pilot Roger Peterson, in the crash of a 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza v-tailed aircraft near Clear Lake, Iowa, while en route to the next show on the tour itinerary in Moorhead, Minnesota. Velline, then aged 15, and a hastily-assembled band of Fargo, North Dakota, schoolboys calling themselves the Shadows volunteered for

LAWRENCE WELK Born in Strasburg ND to Ludwig and Christiana Welk on March 3, 1903 as the 6th of 8 children. Lawrence struck a deal with his dad as a teenager to purchase a mail order accordian for $400. In exchange, he would stay and work on the family farm until he was 21. Lawrence kept his word and on his 21st birthday, left the farm to pursue the music career that he loved. During the 1920s, he performed with the Luke Witkowski, Lincoln Boulds, and George T. Kelly bands before starting his own orchestra. He led big bands in North Dakota and eastern South Dakota. These included the Hotsy Totsy Boys